Proposal to remove snapcraft builds from ipfs-cluster

[hsanjuan]

Basic information

• Type (mark as appropiate):
  • Bug
  • Feature request
  • Enhancement

Description

Publishing snaps is a time sink for me due to their constant annoyances. Either builds break, or the credentials expire, or the store build requires manual approval, or, as now, they make us go and explain why we need classic confinement and after all the explanations they just don't seem to take action anyway (https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/classic-confinement-request-for-the-ipfs-cluster-snap/8056/8).

In the meantime, Travis is red. Actually we cannot even publish snaps on the stable channel from Travis because they only take edge when pushing from Travis, and they don't document any workaround. I am trying to setup their build pipeline but, it must be a joke, their DNS server is not there to resolve ipfs.io:

https://build.snapcraft.io/user/ipfs/ipfs-cluster/361367

We also have not much documentation about how to configure and nothing to orchestrate a snap cluster setup. Stats report 30 active devices for cluster: https://snapcraft.io/ipfs-cluster/metrics?period=6m

Ideally, we would hand this to a community member interested in maintaining this packaging format in a way that the Cluster team doesn't have to be fully commited to its maintenance, documentation and support.

@brianmcmichael you're the only person I can identify using snaps, please feel free to drop in your point of view here.

[koalalorenzo]

I honestly think that the usage would be a clear sign if it is meant to be supported. I realized recently that snaps packages (with snapcraft) are a little bit more complex and hard to support than other way to distribute apps (docker for example).

We are not going to support Snap packages on Orion 1.0 for very similar reasons! And I say this with a super sad face, but the usage is so low that we kinda don’t have to care. Our package on Siderus Debian repository has more downloads than our snap package

[brianmcmichael]

I'm ok with this. I was using the snap because it was mentioned in the documentation and they are generally pretty easy to set up, but in production I went ahead with the precompiled binaries due to the confinement and user account management issues.

Snaps are probably better suited to traditional single-user style desktop apps anyways.

[hsanjuan]

Ok, so it looks that 0.7.0 will be the last snap (with some luck, if I managed to fix it again now). After that I will move the snap related code out of the way. I'll keep the store app and maybe transfer it later if someone wants to maintain it. Note this is a reversible decision anyway, we can decide to come back in the future.

[hsanjuan]

They finally approved the classic confinement. I'll leave the snap until it breaks next time. Then I'll remove it.